Hotel Manasarovar Xigaze

... as much destruction. It's a massive place and has<br>the largest number of monks; however there is a suspicion among<br>Tibetans that the monks here are in cahoots with Chinese authorities.<br> <br><br><br><br><br>We<br>wanted to take some pictures but to take pictures inside the<br>buildings you have to pay the equivalent of $10 a chapel &#8211; and<br>that's just too steep for us! The area is a maze and we are glad<br>Sonam is guiding us. In fact he is ...

... Arch to the city! The gap in between will be filled shortly. Probably in time for the 2010 opening of a new airport here... We did view the eclipse (not quite full) from here though, which was very exciting and caused much upset when we revealed this to those who had trekked up to Mount Emei Shan in Sichuan - for what was meant to be the best and longest view - whose view had been covered by the clouds. <br> <br>

Today we headed to Shigatse. With many delays with our truck breaking down and following a so called road, that was always under construction, we finally reached the town tired and grumpy. We got over the grumps pretty quickly when we noticed we were back in civilsation. We even got to go to a real supermarket ( the first in weeks). It even had a Jeans West! Shigatse is ...

for those of you thinking that a trip to tibet might be nice, as i did, a suggestion: do more research than i did before coming here. i bought a tibet guide but scarcely read it before the train journey to lhasa. and even then, seeing as the guide is three years old and the intricacies of travel in tibet change with the wind, i should have read more first hand accounts of moving around tibet outside of lhasa. because lhasa is easy, entering tibet via lhasa is easy, seeing ...

home of the panchen lama, more adventures in smokey internet cafes.. night 3 until i can be ****'d to type this section up (which maybe never - it was total information overload this trip) you can check out ayse &amp; pet's blog / photos..

... for a long time had monks from 3 of the 4 main sects of Tibetan Buddhism studying there, which means that you can see different influences and aspects of each tradition around the grounds. We saw several pictures of leaders of the different sects (both past and current) who are held in high esteem for their leadership. Next to the main building in the monastery grounds is the Kumbum, a temple housing 100,000 images (statues ...

... In the morning we had a bit of a surprise, when the hotel receptionist chased me down in the hall and introduced a chubby stranger bellaring into a cellphone as our driver, like he had been all along. Problem was, we'd never seen the guy before, and I just assumed the girl had one of those "all white people look alike to me" afflictions (the same kind that causes all Koreans to immediately draw comparisons between any foreigner and random famous white people). Our ...

... that could satisfy our multi-ethnic culinary demands and getting quite drunk from beer and altitude. It was just us final five that made the overland journey though, and Kelly had to turn back at the Nepalese border since her visa wouldn't allow re-entry. The trip itself was an experience of a life-time--I can't really think of a more profound way to describe it so I'll just give you the details. Technically we followed the friendship highway, which connects ...

We are high up in the mountains, at almost 4000m (13,123ft). We treasure water here above all else. It is critical to drink enough to avoid getting AMS - Acute Mountain Sickness, given the symptoms of loss of appetite, headaches, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, dizziness, insomnia, shortness of breath. It can even get worse, causing death, so I drink as much water as possible. Of course, this means visiting the toilet facilities more often, but by now I am accustomed to much ...

... not pilgrims from far away places. The pace here is much slower than Lhasa, and not many local Tibetans spoke fluent Chinese. <br>The highlight of Shigatse is Tashilhunpo Monastery, Tsang region's premier Gelugpa monastery and the seat of Panchen Lamas. Panchen Lamas were traditional rivals of Dalai Lamas ...